Detroit for better or worse, but getting better.

  Last night N and I saw the show at the Detroit Rep and driving home about 10:30 we found the entrance from Davison to I-96 East blocked because of an accident. We turned around and went south on Livernois, turn NW on Grand River, and back to I-96 West. We went through a lot of disheartening and frightening areas.

Over the last decade and a half I've been all over the city. Acted in plays, auditioned, and seen shows at the Planet Ant in Hamtramck, and the Detroit Rep on Woodrow Wilson near Davison. I've performed comedy at Starters a number of time (Plymouth Road two blocks west of Southfield freeway), a couple of other bars. I've performed at the GEM downtown. I performed at a bar near Wyoming and Grand Rapids, where you had to park in a fenced-in parking lot and get frisked for weapons and the show-runner told me not to walk the few blocks away to get a cup of coffee. He said, "drive or you’ll be killed." I worked in a rock video near Rosa Parks and Grand Boulevard amid far flung ruins, a TV show that brought me to the East Side and Masonic Temple. Seen operas etc. at the Detroit Opera House, I worked in voter protection at polling places in Detroit in '04, 08, '12 (twice), and '14. In 2012, at a polling place on W. Chicago just east of Dexter, I was walking out for a cup of coffee when three well-dressed local women on the way to vote looked at me in horror and told my I'd have to drive because (this was at high noon) it wasn't safe to walk. I was part of a group of Ann Arbor white guys that toured downtown places, including great soul food dinner at Café D’Mongo’s Speakeasy, and later at Bert's Place at the Eastern Market (got to hug Martha Reeves which capped off a great evening). I auditioned at Wayne and places in the inner city I can visualize but have forgotten the names, and eaten several dinners at the Cass Cafe on Woodward. I've also been to New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Dallas. Detroit is far worse than the others I've seen. Yet I keep going there because there are things to do there that I want to do. And I can feel the excitement of a city that has nowhere to go but up, and is actually, if slowly, getting there, even if a huge percentage of its land is vacant or covered with decrepit buildings and marred by violence, too broke to police the town properly, to I hope Detroit’s pockets of vitality expand to fill the city and I hope it happens within my lifetime.

 

·       

SOME OF MY FAVORITE SPORTS ANNOUNCERS

Lynch Travis asked on Facebook asked for favorite sports announcers.

Red Barber and Ernie Harwell. Two southern guys who taught New York kids that a down-home drawl was cool. Laid back manners but eloquent as only southerners can be. Younger fans who heard Ernie also heard Barber who influenced him. When I moved to Ann Arbor in 1960 I was delighted to find that Harwell was already here.

Marty Glickman. On January 1, 1988, living alone on the West Side of Ann Arbor, I went to Kmart, to buy a cheap cabinet to put together during the game. I also, bought a green sweater to root for Michigan State. I got home after the game started, but on the car radio I heard Marty Glickman’s unmistakable voice calling conjured Glickman radio version.  As always, he called the game in unapologetically articulate and correct English, without screaming or filling short voids with annoying chatter.  Late in his career he was NBC’s sportscaster coach and called Ivy League football for PBS. There’s a fine documentary film on his life called, “Glickman.” By the way, State won the Rose Bowl, and only late last year did I finally threw away the sweater which had developed one hole too many.
 

In the eighties, living in semi-retirement in Connecticut, Glickman was asked to do play-by-play of a Knick game to be played in Hartford where the airports were snowed in preventing the arrival of the regular broadcast crew. He sounded like a Brooklyn kid with diction lessons (like Jerry Seinfeld).

 

Al Michaels. Aside from speaking excellent English in a pleasantly smooth voice, Michaels gifts of observation and description served well when, as ABC TV's  lead announcer of the 1989 World Series in San Francisco. Game three started with an earthquake and didn’t continue after a ten-day hiatus. The network called on Michaels to describe the quake and its effects and he did so well enough to win an Emmy for news coverage.
 

Vin Scully You can hear his influence, on the delivery style of Al Michaels’ and Central Michigan’s Dick Enberg.

Michigan Hero of the Game. What does it mean?

I’ve attended almost every home game of the Michigan basketball team this season, and will continue to do so throughout the season as I have for all but one season since 1977-78. This year, the constant show that is a Michigan basketball game, throbbing through every time-out and intermission with entertainment that even Ed Sullivan would have regarded as junk, includes a Michigan alum with some connection or other to our armed services (there must be a lot of them because we’ve been continually at war since 2001 when we bombed, and then invaded, Afghanistan) has been honored as hero of the game.  Possibly some, but surely not all, fit the Merriam-Webster first definition of hero, which is how I’ve always understood it. “a :  a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability, b :  an illustrious warrior, c :  a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities, d :  one who shows great courage.”

 

Most of the honorees have made quotidian contributions to our war efforts. This doesn’t mean that they are not honorable soldiers, sailors, etc. But that they are not really heroes. It is apparent that their connections to the military, however tenuous, are being used by the Crisler Arena entertainment juggernaut to instill unearned feelings of goodness in the crowd, a shabby treatment for a current or former member of the military, not as damaging as our monumental failure to keep faith with returning combat veterans by “honoring” them with such earned benefits as prompt and high-quality medical treatment, reeducation for civilian life, and adequate pay.

 

According to http://www.mgoblue.com/fanzone/hero-of-the-game.html the short spot is sponsored by Applebees. I wonder how much of the fee paid by the sponsor goes to the honoree or other members of our military. I can’t find anywhere the names of honorees although there have been, I believe, ten of them so far.

 

This diatribe was motivated by having read (partly, not yet finished) James Fallows’ article, “The Tragedy of the American Military.” 

 http://www.npr.org/2014/12/29/373835100/james-fallows-on-the-tragedy-of-the-american-military

So tomorrow, at the Illinois game, I’m not going to stand and applaud, unless the honoree truly fits the definitions above. I’ve refused for a few years now to stand, applaud or cheer during the introductions of Michigan players at these games because the house announcer goes through the opponents’ starting lineup as if he were presenting over-ripe limburger cheese, and treats every Michigan player as if he was the Messiah come again.

 If you think I’m an old grouch, you’re probably right, but that doesn’t make me wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DON'T LET THE REPUBLICAN TRICK OR TREAT GAME DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY

First, read this article in the Huff Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/30/texas-voter-id_n_6076536.html

Then read this.

The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to permit the extreme Texas voter ID law to remain in effect pending a final ruling by the Court to take place after the election, has caused a massive denial of the right to vote by the poor and minorities in Texas. This is the inevitable result of a law designed solely to achieve that purpose. These horrors, these insults to democracy, are summarized in the cited article in Huff Post. It is the latest (but certain

None of the many State voter ID laws which were passed on the excuse of avoiding vote fraud (in the face of no evidence whatever that vote fraud is even a small problem) have the faintest whiff of an honest purpose. They are in service of a naked power grab. The events that lead up to this catastrophic wounding of the American democracy began long ago, but we might start with the utterly fraudulent decision by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. That decision, by a party-line vote of 5-4 was one of the shortest on record, and may have been the shortest in any case as important as that one. It cited few precedents, none of which seemed applicable, and created a new definition of “equal protection” that was so spurious that the court said the case was not to be used as precedent in any later case. That is enough to show that the Court knew it was struggling to justify a purely political decision with no legal foundation or excuse.

President Bush appointed two more extreme conservative Republicans who have pushed the Court to the far right on matters effecting politics and power.

History has several examples of despotic governments that gained power by taking over a democratically elected one. The Republican Party controls the courts, partly through appointments by Republican Presidents, and partly by refusing to confirm Obama appointees. It controls one House of Congress by legitimate means and the other by manipulating procedure to prevent the majority from approving appointees and from passing their legislative agenda.

After President Obama took office, Mitch McConnell said his top priority was to make him a one-term President. The oath of office for every Senator is to “support and defend the Constitution.” McConnell’s top priority was, and is, to subvert the constitutional functioning of the government, something he and his fellow Republicans did most diligently, while blocking performance of legislative duties that would promote the successful functioning of the government. For a Senator to declare that the next election, not the success of the nation, is his top priority, is surely a violation of his oath of office and comes perilously close to treason.

In 2009 President Obama took office with a Democrat-controlled Senate and House. He was prevented, at almost every turn, from getting his legislative agenda passed and from getting his appointees approved for judicial and administrative positions. The result is that numerous judgeships and administrative positions remain unfilled. His one major legislative success, the so-called “Obama-Care,” has been the subject of numerous repeal efforts, even as it has become effective and popular.

The irony is that the halting progress of the government caused by recalcitrant Republicans, maneuvering for more power, is now blamed on Obama by the very perpetrators of dysfunction.

What can we do about it? For starters vote on Tuesday and get everyone you know to do it.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Dave Schwensen, a comedy club manager and author of the excellent guide for aspiring comics, "The Comedy Book," posted this on Face Book on the page, “Detroit Comedians and Comedy Fans.”

Have you ever missed a gig? Being a no-show is worse than ignoring the light while on stage and going over your performance time. http://thecomedybook.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/youll-never-work-in-this-town-again/

“Don’t miss a gig if you plan to work for that talent booker again in the future. And if you do, just hope he sees you on the television news explaining how the tornado interrupted your rendezvous w...

As a professional actor and sometime professional comic, I'd like to add my voice to the discussion.

Missing an open mic is okay, although if I have a spot I will, if at all possible, notify the host or show runner as far in advance as possible. But missing a booked gig short of actual impossibility caused by serious illness or injury or the equivalent is very bad form. In forty years of amateur and professional acting and fifteen of (mostly amateur) comedy, I've never missed a performance (except a few open mics - with notice) even for illness or injury. I’ve had to rent cars to get to comedy performances at least twice.

In my late fifties, I performed in “Summer and Smoke” with a 102+ fever, chills, and cold sweats, and was as energetic as ever, until my exit, when I strode to the wings and stumbled to the dressing room. When it came time for curtain call I kept time with the other actors marching downstage.

About thirty years ago I was to open in a dinner theater production of "The Odd Couple" as Oscar Madison on Thursday. On the previous Monday I'd twisted my ankle playing basketball, it swelled up big and quick and I could barely limp. Offstage I used a cane and hobbled. I rehearsed sitting in the couch. Another aggravating factor was a jury trial in Port Huron, about two hours from the show that started on Tuesday. I drove to Port Huron every morning and tried the case to a jury. At 5:00 when Court adjourned for the day, I drove back, arriving at the theater about 7:45, bought a couple of snickers bars and a large coffee, changed into costume, got made up, did all the performances and had a great time.

Before opening night, I’d cut my costume shoe open so I could wrap my ankle with an Ace bandage and I moved as naturally as I could. I bounced around the stage with all necessary energy got all the laughs that Oscar Madison should get. I don’t think anyone in the audience had even a notion about my bad ankle, although it hurt like hell.

The show ran three or four weeks, and the ankle improved a little each day, walking with the cane, the pain slowly receding, but it was months before the swelling went all the way down and I was able to return to basketball.  There really is something to the theater motto, "The show must go on." In theaters with understudies, like the Purple Rose, it's not quite as compelling, but still actors don't like to take the chance for an injury or sick day off. In "Escanaba in Love," after it moved from the Purple Rose to the Gem in Detroit, the actor I was understudying, Will David Young, badly injured his knee on the day of opening night, but went on anyhow, sitting in a chair with his leg in a cast. Finally, he had to take off for surgery and came back only three weeks later, not fully healed, but impelled by his sense of responsibility. That really applies to almost all jobs, professional and otherwise. It’s taking an adult approach to your work.

Missing a performance when not absolutely, positively, necessary is not professional.

By the way, Dave Schwensen’s book is a valuable aide to comics, and it appears to be free.

JERSEY BULLIES: Christie and Incognito?

In a 144 page investigative report to the NFL based on emails, text messages, and over 100 interviews, Richie Incognito was blamed for an atmosphere of intimidation in the Miami Dolphins locker room that used racial and sexual taunts and “joking” threats in “a classic case of bullying, directed against Jonathan Martin, who is both black and gay, and who finally quit the team after contemplating suicide.

The report, however, did not point to the similarities in behavior between Incognito and his fellow New Jersey native, Governor Chris Christie. This writer suggests that the full story of these two men be told in a documentary to be called, “The Bloated Bully Brothers, starring Jake and Elwood Bully.” An observer noted that, beside their similar appearances and body types, the Bully Brothers both wear their names on their clothing, Christie on the front, and Incognito on the back. Incognito’s has a number, and Christie’s has his title.

NEWS BURIED ON JUMP PAGE. READER’S DILEMMA: TO JUMP OR NOT TO JUMP

 Prompted by a column today by the Times' public editor.

In Ann Arbor today, as on most days since late December, the snow that dominates the view from our kitchen window and the well-below freezing temperatures that go with it are the most important topics of the day. As I have almost every morning for more years than I care to admit, I unfold my reading rack and place the first section of the Times on it. But as I drizzle honey on my granola and prepare to pour my first cup of coffee, I see this troubling headline on the front page, “Accidents Surge As Oil Industry Takes the Train.” I want to know more so I read down to the bottom and learn about breakfast at Kerry’s Kitchen in a small town in North Dakota where comfort food, especially freshly baked caramel rolls, is the order of the day. 

I took a large spoonful of cereal, topped with fresh fruit and raisins and sipped some coffee. Then, I learned that the trains the headline alluded to rumble by the diner’s window seven times a day, and that sometime last month one of them had a fiery accident that caused evacuation of the town. That’s what I learned by reading a little over three and a half column inches. Naturally, my curiosity was whetted, but I couldn’t learn more without removing the paper from the rack, unfolding it (I can’t believe the Times doesn’t know what its readers are acutely aware of, that turning pages of the Times requires care and skills best developed on the subway, as it wends its way through the tunnels and bridges that take one from an apartment in Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, something I did over fifty years ago).

I took another sip of coffee to wash down the bits of flax seed that had begun to cover my teeth so I could turn to the jump page and follow the story.

On page 18, I find the history of the practice that led to the accidents alluded to by the headline, and finally get the actual facts after I have made it through another 2 ½ column inches.

I decided to make a complaint, so I told my girlfriend, to whom I do most of my whining, and she told me of the Public Editor’s piece in today’s Week in Review, for which I thank you. But this particular story is polluted not only by interpretation, but by irrelevant “human interest” details that keep me from what once might have been called “news.”

The effort involved in turning pages of the Times is considerable and the possibility that it will be fruitful can’t be estimated until you’ve actually done it. This is not fair to print edition readers. At Erasmus Hall High School I took two terms of journalism from Erna Fleischer, and learned the inverted pyramid system of writing news stories and the reasons for it. It seems to me that the print edition of a broad-sheet newspaper should, for the most part, follow that plan.

Perhaps you think that readers don’t need details because they get them from TV, radio and internet, but that doesn’t apply to me. If it did, I might cancel my subscription to the hard copy paper and save myself over $600.00 per year because it would render your paper irrelevant.

I hope your column today bears fruit so that I can continue to look to the Times as my primary news source.

GUEST BLOGGER: New York Times editorial opposes King amendment to farm bill (updates piece below, October 28, 2013) by N. Nonymous

For more information on this threat to animals and democracy, see the editorial in today's (1/25/14) New York Times and this article from Huff Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/16/farm-bill-amendment_n_4277666.html.

GUEST BLOGGER: A Letter Sent To Our Representatives and Senators By My Girlfriend

Please do everything in your power to defeat the King amendment to the Farm Bill. This amendment is an attack on democracy and threatens to undermine Americans' confidence in their ability to have any meaningful input on the laws under which they live. As just one example, in 2008, according to Wikipedia, more than 8 million Californians (63% of voters) approved Proposition 2, which confers some meager protections on farm animals. By contrast, there are only some 3 million people in Iowa, of whom only 200,000 (53%) voted for Mr. King. And he has the power to set farm policy for the United States? By attaching an odious amendment to must-pass legislation, Mr. King seeks to get by trickery what he could never achieve by legitimate means. It is as much to keep the faith with American voters as to protect farm animals that we must defeat Mr. King's noxious, antidemocratic amendment. Better no farm bill at all than one that spits in the face of the people of California and other states and rewards the bullying tactics of a single, out-of-step individual.

MR. BOEHNER, CALL A HALT TO THE COUP D'ETAT

If you haven’t already, you must hear this excerpt from an actual House of Representatives proceeding, because all Americans need to know how far the House has gone to constrict the life breath of our democracy. As you hear it, note the smugness of the speaker pro-tem chairing the session as he rebuffs the arguments of a representative who wants to bring to the floor for a vote an amendment proposed by the Senate to end the shut down and debt payment crisis we now face.

Next consider this definition of coup d’état that comes from Wikipedia.

A coup d'état  . . . is the sudden deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to depose the extant government and replace it with another body, civil or military. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers establish their dominance. When the coup neither fails completely nor succeeds, a civil war is a likely consequence.

A coup d'état typically uses the extant government's power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d’état: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak states that "[a] coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder." The armed forces, whether military or paramilitary, are not a defining factor of a coup d'état . . .

The House of Representatives has amended its standing rule so that only the speaker or his delegate could call for a vote on an amendment made by the Senate, effectively putting in the hands of one man, John Boehner, the ability to call a house vote on a sensible and necessary plan to permit the government to function, with no recourse to the full House, and to make timely payments of debt service This is the latest step of a coup d’etat designed to concentrate power in the hands of the Tea Party rump. It’s clear that the change to the long-standing and sensibly-democratic House rule  was adopted simply to prevent a vote that the Tea Party rump would probably lose.

Earlier steps include use at record levels of frequency of procedures in the Senate to prevent bills and appointments that the Democratic majority would pass ; court decisions that permit unlimited and often anonymous campaign donations; radically gerrymandered House districts, proposals to have presidential electors chosen by congressional districts instead of statewide. Some call the Tea Party crazy, but these small steps are beginning to form a pattern of concentrating power in a minority of Republicans.

A small group of government insiders using the power of the government to take over functions constitutionally assigned to both Houses of Congress and the President is  happening and it closely tracks the definition of coup d'état. And now it has come to this: a small rump of Congress has amassed the power to prevent the U.S. government from functioning according to our constitution and laws.

I offer no solutions, but we must prevent the democracy hating rump of Congress from taking over the government for its own purposes. Add to court decisions that, the absolute refusal of a minority of the House of Representatives to permit the nation to function according to its constitution and laws, and there is real danger present. The Tea Party rump is drawing about itself, in small steps, a wall of undemocratic actions to preserve and extend its power over the majority made up of Republicans and

Democrats. I offer no solutions except to exhort the sane members of both parties to put a stop to the power-hungry rump’s ongoing coup.

Many have called the Tea Party faction crazy, but they begin to seem diabolically clever. They’re on the verge of causing untold damage to this Country’s finances for a long time to come, of severely reducing our reputation as the leader of the “free world;” of depriving Americans of lawful benefits; and repealing the democratically elected and Supreme Court approved Affordable Health Care act by simply withholding the funds necessary to implement it.

President Obama and the Democrats are doing the right thing by not yielding to the demands of bullies but, oddly enough, only John Boehner can call a halt to this passive violence by calling for a vote in the House. He hasn’t so far been a profile in courage but we can only hope.

MR. PRESIDENT, DON'T APPEASE THE BULLIES

[N. B. Ironically, President Obama's website says that, because of the shutdown, his office may not see this letter I sent today until it is over. Thanks to the invaluable Nancy for her editing help.]

 

Dear President Obama:

 

I’m 74 years old, a Democrat since college when I campaigned for Adlai Stevenson; I’ve been a loyal supporter of President Obama, Senators Levin and Stabenow, and Representative Dingell. Although I depend on social security and Medicare I’m also a patriot, as my immigrant father taught me. As much as the government shutdown may hurt me, the imminent danger to the nation that I hope my grandchildren will inherit with pride, will hurt me more.

The passive aggression of the smug, do-nothing anarchists of the far right must be resisted at all costs. To me, this means that you must not give them anything in return for modifying or even dropping their extortionate demands. To do otherwise, would be to invite an ongoing crisis by rewarding behavior that partakes of disloyalty and borders on treason.

Airplane, the 1980 film comedy, has a satire on Point Counterpoint in which the conservative says of the trapped plane passengers, “They bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into, let ‘em die!” Thus, yesterday’s satire is today’s doctrine. Food inspection, medical research, aid to the hungry, Medicare, Medicaid, and many other services that have an impact on health either have been or will be interrupted or just lost if the “Let ‘em die!” faction isn’t stopped now.

Please, I beg you, no matter the short-term cost, stand your ground to save our democracy.

PERFORMANCE NETWORK’S BECKY SHAW STIMULATES, ENTERTAINS, TITILLATES, AND SATISFIES

Last week, I saw the premiere of Becky Shaw at the Performance Network: funny, touching and troubling, it gives us five interesting (frightening in one case) characters and five outstanding performances, with perfect timing and pacing under the direction of Phil Powers.

The characters are richly drawn by playwright, actors, and director. Sarab Kamoo and David Wolber, play non-siblings who were raised together, have a complicated relationship, and let us peer into to every nook and nuance of it. Wolber’s Max and Kamoo’s Suzanna are obviously damaged. He hides his insecurities behind manly bravado but lives as a responsible man, the picture of the Yiddish “Mensch.” She lives through her insecurities but leaves us with the feeling that she’s going to be all right.

 Only the title character (Maggie Meyer) dismays and confounds, a stone idly tossed into a pond, making ripples that radiate from the point of impact, a playwright’s shortcut, like the crazy neighbors in A Delicate Balance or the goat in “The Goat.”

The script leaves the conclusion of the story in doubt, which is far better than a forced happy ending, but suggests a conclusion which, as I understand it, would have sold out cheaply one of the characters. Can’t say more without ruining the second act for you, but since nothing seems final when the house lights go on, does it matter?

 Monika Essen turns in her usual excellent and serviceable sets: there isn't a false note anywhere in this production.

Once, I said to an actress friend that plays are about characters; she said, no; plays are about relationships. Either way, Becky Shaw draws us deeply into the lives of some very lively and very human people, a fine place to be for a couple of hours.

THE TEA PARTY SILLY SEASON

The silly season, having degenerated into stupid on its way to the psychotic season, moves on. Two recent Huff Post posts may be seen as guide posts to the end of the journey. Or to put it another way, there seems to be a stampede on the road that should be less traveled. One from June 28 reports:

“Matt Davis, a Michigan attorney who was once the state Republican Party's spokesman, sent out an email that asked whether armed rebellion would be justified in the wake of the court's [Affordable Health Care Act] decision. 

… It begins: ‘Implicit in Benjamin Franklin's fabled response at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention was a dire warning: That the Republic would one day devolve into tyranny unless we the people prevented it.’ 

It goes on to characterize Obama's election as the end point of a "100-year progressive trek to tyranny."

In fairness, according to the Detroit Free Press, Mr. Davis later apologized for sending what he called “unedited work product.” He took back what seemed to be a call for armed insurrection but he didn't retract or explain his misquotation of Ben Franklin.

Franklin never said what Davis attributes to him. He did say this at convention’s end about the Constitution,

“. . . I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”

The meaning is obvious: despotism will come only if the people become so corrupt they are otherwise ungovernable. Then, Franklin goes on to laud the constitution:  “It approach[es] so near to perfection … I expect no better, and … I am not sure that it is not the best.” Yet conservative websites quote only the part about despotism and pretend, as Davis has, that Franklin predicted the inevitability of despotic government. Quoting out of context and distorting the plain meaning of the words, Davis and others have wandered far from the truth to tell a bald lie.

The other whiff of political sulfur came July 2.

“Tea Party lawmaker in Montana [Krayton Kerns] said the relocation of 60 bison -- which he blamed on Walt Disney's creation of "Bambi" -- could lead to gas jumping to $25 a gallon as part of a liberal federal government plot.” …

Kerns said the moving of the 60 bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck Native American Reservation this winter is part of "a four step process to crush the republic and bring our populace into perfect dependence on big government -- just as Karl Marx dreamed.”

I don’t know what Marx’ dreamt but there is no record of it in his voluminous writings. It’s contrary to what he wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” where he predicted that at the end of the process begun by a working-class revolution the state would “wither away” because people satisfied by economic justice won’t need a government.

These folks are not ordinary private idiots, but serious public ones. As Davis made up a pseudo quotation for Ben Franklin, Kerns put an idea into Karl Marx’ dreams that would have been anathema to him. Two Tea Party activists, two plain lies, batting a thousand for the team. The level of divorcement from reality that informs these people and their websites is awe-inspiring. Their willingness to distort and ignore the truth for political ends is a fine example of the corruption among the populace that Franklin was afraid of. Ironic, no?

Thomas Huxley wrote, “If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is a man who has so much as to be out of danger?” 

Surely not in the Davis-Kerns wing of the Tea Party.

.

BRIAN BEDFORD-ANOTHER TONY NOMINATION

Congratulations to Brian Bedford: Tony nominated -- as Lady Bracknell -- for the fifth time in five Broadway appearances over the last eighteen years He'd already won for Jumpers in 1974, School for Wives, 1971, and The Misanthrope, 1968 -- the last two having opened in Ann Arbor with the APA (Phoenix) Company before New York. He's also won several Drama Desk awards for other performances. Because of his frequent visits to this town in the sixties and seventies with APA, and our proximity to his Stratford (Ontario) base, we've seen him on stage more than any other great actor.

His comic appearances, in Moliere plays, as Dogberry in Much Ado, as Elyot in Private Lives (ones I've seen) make him one of the best comic stage actors of our time. His understated approach magnifies his gifts; he has an almost supernatural ability to use long silences to brilliant effect and uproarious laughter. In The Moliere Comedies at Stratford he took his curtain call in full period costume and bowed with a great arcing swipe of his feathered hat then stood straight and stared unsmiling at the full house for an almost unbearable time, eventually provoking giggles, and then, just when you could stand it no longer, he raised an eyebrow and brought down the house.

He'll be back at Stratford this summer in The Misanthrope.

Thanks, Brian Bedford. I hope to see you again soon.

AN AMATEUR CYNIC ASKS, "WHITHER CHARLIE SHEEN?"

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KRUGMAN'S COLUMN TODAY ON BOND RATING AGENCIES

Click here to read column.

An old joke: an accountant is asked, “how much do one and one make?” He answers, “how much do you want them to be?” Such was the attitude of big accounting firms, suborned by huge consulting contracts, that abetted Enron and other frauds a decade ago and has informed the more recent behavior of bond rating agencies suborned by lucrative commissions.

They knew prospective buyers, unaware that the agencies had been bought off by sellers, would rely on evaluations biased in favor of their deep-pocket customers.

Of the securities acts, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, mail and wire fraud statutes, and state fraud laws surely some will apply. This isn’t much different than real estate appraisers who abet mortgage frauds by over-valuing properties in order to keep sellers’ business. Eliot Spitzer would have been at the courthouse by now.

New regulations aren’t enough because Wall Street can find a way around any rule by creating new frauds. That’s why, along with better regulations, frauds must be prosecuted to take the profit out of them. This is what President Obama must do if he truly wants to show he isn’t in Wall Street’s pocket.

If the Federal government won’t act, attorney General Cuomo should ask, “what would Eliot do?” Yes, the crooks in Brooks Brothers can hire expensive lawyers, but the State of New York has much to gain and will surely find good lawyers to fight for the people.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS AT PERFORMANCE NETWORK - DON'T MISS THIS!

Little Shop of Horrors at the Network is an absolute delight with great singing and acting, direction that is crisp, fluid, and precise but not rushed, and a great set that sets the tone and changes quickly. The mood of the show is comic at first yet the actors take the characters seriously which heightens both the drama and the comedy. This is probably a joint choice by director Carla Milarch and her actors and it works perfectly

Courtney Myer's first song "Somewhere That's Green" was an anthem of joy and wistful, dreaming, hopefulness. She told her story of faint hope with her lovely voice and her eyes. Naz Edwards looked like a plant and sang like a black man, an operatic soul singer, sort of Porgy and bitch. Her voice carried her anger and meanness to the last row and beyond. Jason Richards, who seems perfect for every character he plays, morphed into Seymour. His singing is excellent as always and nailed his character.

B.J. Love was a funny and bouncily youthful old man, a cross between Phil Silvers and Phil Foster.

Little Shop is a morality tale with some Don Giovanni, some Sweeney Todd, and some Mad Comics. I found myself laughing a lot and very loudly yet rising and falling with the fortunes of Audrey and Seymour. I hoped for them although I knew it was hopeless.

The staging of the plant’s carnivorous excess was genius. It happened quickly and believably.

Altogether, and much to my surprise, Little Shop was one of the best evenings I’ve had in theater for a long time.

Miss this and be very, very, sorry.

SEC SUES FINANCIER FOR IGNORING SIGNS OF MADOFF FRAUD

Click here to read story.

The Times reports that the SEC filed a civil suit in June against the operator of a “feeder fund” to Bernie Madoff and the Justice Department is investigating the same setup for possible criminal violations. The basis asserted by the SEC and, presumably, the Justice Department, is that he “ . . . steered clients’ money to Mr. Madoff — and collected hundreds of millions of dollars in management fees — ‘despite having clear indications that Madoff was conducting a fraud.’ ”

It is tempting to put the last quotation in screaming purple italics. Is the SEC not the same organization that for over a decade ignored complaints about Mr. Madoff’s operations from knowledgable sources “. . . despite having clear indications that Madoff was conducting a fraud?” This gives us a new definition of chutzpah: in place of the old one, a child who murders his parents and pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan, we have a government watchdog suing an individual for not acting on evidence that the watchdog itself ignored the whole time

Surely the defendant will try to point this out to the jury, but the SEC’s lawyer, or the prosecutor, will object on the ground that following the example of a government agency is not a defense. Everyone involved in the SEC’s show trial will take it with a straight face. But I won’t. I’m laughing already.

This Bizzaro standard of responsibility advocated by the SEC is as ridiculous as Jeffrey Dahmer complaining that his victim's corpse assaulted him with its final twitch. If there is justice in the world we’ll see the feeder fund operator let off the hook and the entire SEC marched off in chains in an internationally televised perp walk. Of course, that won’t happen, but I’m still laughing.

CHRISTMAS CAROL'D at the Performance Network

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is a stirring and beautiful story, about a bad guy who gratefully grabbed his last chance to reform and was redeemed. Dickens loved the secular aspects of Christmas and celebrated them in this story, but the master story teller knew it was the story that counted. Yet adaptations I’ve seen on the big and small screens and four on stage miss the mark in one way or another. Some are just treacly and play on the holiday season, and some are so bound-up in the text they turn this lovely tale into so many sticks of wood or get lost in details.

Tonight, I was treated to Joe Zettelmaier’s crack at the chestnut, “Christmas Carol’d” thoughtfully, even brilliantly, mounted at the Performance Network Theatre in Ann Arbor, and had a very happy surprise. Joe Z obviously understands Mr. Dickens’ book and knows how to dramatize it. The words are preserved for the most part, but the dramatic scenes are neatly intertwined with the narration, done by four excellent and well-cast actors who also play all the roles but Scrooge (B. J. Love, Terry Heck, Chelsea Sadler and Kevin Young). David Wolber’s direction keeps the story flowing so the two complement each other as they gracefully flow back and forth. What emerges is not an adapted book, but a play.

This jewel of a show sits on a luxurious cushion of Christmas Carols, artfully selected and beautifully sung – a cappella – by the four non-Scrooge actors.

None of this would be quite as moving or as enjoyable without John Seibert’s touching depth and sparkling wit as Scrooge. He nailed that part.

Monika Essen’s lovely and cleverly serviceable set and Dan Walker’s lights work hand in hand with Wolber’s direction to facilitate the action. And Ms. Essen’s costumes are pitch perfect.

I was entertained and moved. What more can you expect from an evening of theater?